Tantrics Of Old (52 page)

Slowly, they moved towards the building from the side alley. There, below the building, instead of the one Commando, there stood five guarding the entrance.

‘Oh, it’s the reinforcements from MYTH,’ Natasha said, stepping out of hiding. ‘Come along, its fine.’

‘Uh, are you sure?’ Gray asked.

‘We have to last another night here and not let them attack the Devil Mask right now,’ Adri hissed. ‘We don’t have a choice here. Let’s go.’

The three of them followed Natasha as she walked towards the Commandos. They saluted her. ‘They’re with me,’ Natasha said, pointing at the three following her, and made her way into the garage. They climbed up the staircase to find a group of seven more Commandos and a very familiar Sorcerer. It was Arshamm, and he glared at them.

‘Natasha! Harbouring enemies of the government, I see!’ he cried.

‘Cut it out, Arshamm,’ Natasha said. ‘They haven’t hurt anyone.’

‘The Tantric is banished!’ Arshamm protested. ‘He’s a danger to the men I lead!’

‘God, what is it with you and theatrics?’ Natasha complained.

‘I don’t care about what you have to say, Natasha,’ Arshamm said. ‘I’m having these three arrested and deprived of their weapons as a necessary precaution.’

‘You’re
what
?’ Natasha said.

‘Get out of my way, Natasha,’ Arshamm said.

Natasha stood between Arshamm and the others. She was stiff, her eyes glaring into Arshamm’s.

‘So you won’t even
listen
to what I have to say?’ she said angrily.

‘I won’t let anyone stand in my way when it comes to this scum,’ Arshamm said. ‘You want to take me on, Sorceress?’

Adri stepped in between them, surprising both of them.

‘You want revenge so badly it makes me sick, Arshamm,’ he said, looking at Arshamm.

‘Why, you—’ Arshamm cried, and tiny sparks of electricity began generating in his gauntleted hands.

‘Won’t be necessary, Arshamm,’ Adri said, raising his left hand to Arshamm’s face.

Arshamm glared, horrified, at the ring Adri wore. The electricity in his palms died down.

‘Ring of the High Angel Kaavsh,’ Adri said. ‘Official permit, if you will, stating we are friends of the government. Now back down, Sorcerer.’

Arshamm continued to glare at Adri, his hate spilling. Then he glanced briefly at the Commandos who were watching them and Natasha’s ugly expression. His posture relaxed. ‘Your permission is legal,’ he said. ‘This time, I will let this pass.’

‘What are you so worked up about?’ Natasha shouted. Arshamm ignored her and retreated to another part of the roof.

‘Leave him,’ Adri told Natasha. ‘He should learn to lick his wounds.’

‘What
did
you do to him to have him this angry at you?’ the Sorceress asked, shaking her head.

‘A long story,’ Adri said with an apologetic grin.

‘I’m all ears,’ Natasha said. Adri and Natasha moved off towards the other side, away from where Arshamm had retreated. At any other time Gray would have been curious enough to follow and listen, but not right now. He simply went to where the Commandos were sitting and slumped in an empty space. Fayne followed him, and once again, sat next to him.

‘Back at home, there was always a strict schedule to be followed,’ Gray said. ‘Sleep in the night and work and study during the day. Over here, it’s whatever suits us the best. There are no such rules.’

Fayne said nothing.

‘How do you sleep standing up?’ Gray asked him. ‘How can your body rest that way?’

‘It’s all about training,’ Fayne said. ‘If you dedicate yourself to anything, a lot can happen which may seem unattainable in the beginning.’ The assassin paused. ‘But it is not my sleeping habits that are bothering you,
myrkho
,’ he continued quietly.

‘No, it’s Maya,’ Gray said softly, looking at his feet.

‘Understandable. It is not in your hands anymore, Gray. Your worrying will not help her.’

‘She’s my sister, I can’t help but have the worst of premonitions about this.’

‘Have faith. Trust in Adri Sen,’ Fayne said.

‘I cannot fully trust Adri still, Fayne,’ Gray said. ‘He’s too reckless for my taste. There should be a certain amount of control in a warrior.’

‘The
pashlin
has a lot of power which he does not reveal,’ Fayne said. They looked at Adri telling something to a wide-eyed Natasha. ‘He is older then he looks, and he burns with hidden power. I sensed it the first time I laid eyes on him.’

‘You mean he hasn’t shown us his full capabilities?’ Gray asked, surprised. ‘I mean, we’ve seen him do a lot of things, fight a lot of creatures. Are you talking about the Wraith?’

‘No. The energy the Wraith gives him is different. Adri has power of his own which he hides and hides well. For what reason he hides the power I do not know. He did not unleash it even when we were all about to die in the Hive; he depended upon the Wraith then. But he hasn’t shown you even a fraction of his inner power.’

Gray looked at Adri in a new light, in partial awe. ‘You would never realise that looking at him, would you?’ he asked. ‘Adri has too many secrets, too many stories to tell.’

‘Far too many,’ Fayne said.

The Commandos had been murmuring among themselves for a while now. One of them finally came up to Gray and Fayne. ‘Err, hello,’ he said nervously. ‘We were all wondering who you guys are—and on what business of the Angels you are here.’

Gray looked at him blankly, thinking about what to say. The Commando waited awkwardly for a reply that wasn’t coming. And right then, all of a sudden, something blocked out the moonlight on that part of the roof, throwing the Commandos, Gray, and Fayne into shadow. Everyone looked up.

There, on a higher part of the roof, where the water tank was, crouched a creature, a silhouette in the light of the huge moon behind it. It watched them soundlessly, its eyes burning white. For a moment no one could react, except for the assassin, who was on his feet in a heartbeat, pulling out blades from his abdomen. Everyone gazed, stunned, at the monstrosity, at the haphazardly shaped creature on all fours, quietly perched above them. There was silence, except for the sound of metal scraping as Fayne withdrew dagger after dagger into his hands. Then it roared, and everything sprang to life.

The roar was guttural, hollow and powerful. It froze everyone’s blood and sapped at their courage. ‘Devil Mask!’ a Commando roared.

Adri did not move while the rest scurried away, creating some distance from the gigantic thing. He stood where he was, coldly eyeing the creature. He was thinking.

‘Kill it!’ Arshamm screamed, generating fireballs and throwing them as he bounded across the roof to where the Commandos were. Natasha looked at an unmoving Adri, still staring at the creature on the roof.

‘I’m sorry, Sen, but there’s nothing I can do now,’ she said before joining the fray, her gauntlets generating electricity.

The Mask roared as the Commandos began firing holy rounds at it. Tentacles immediately burst out of its sides, a deadly bone spike at each end.

‘Watch it, tentacles!’ a Commando roared.

The Commandos dodged and continued firing as the creature struck out. The holy rounds did not seem to be doing much damage to it; the creature struck out again and impaled two Commandos, raising their dead bodies to the air as the rest of the tentacles attacked more viciously than before.

‘No, no, STOP!’ Gray roared, running and tackling a Commando. The Commando, taken by surprise, was thrown off his feet. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he roared, grabbing Gray and roughly shoving him aside.

The Devil Mask could see everywhere at once. No one took it by surprise, not even Arshamm with his boomerang fireballs. The fireballs and holy rounds pounded into the creature’s dead flesh without effect; it struck back with lethal accuracy, impaling Commando after Commando. Natasha poured pure electricity into the Devil Mask, again without any result. At best, the electricity seemed to subdue it mildly. The beast roared, and Natasha yelled for the Commandos to find cover. Cover though, was tough to find as the Mask had the advantage of altitude and that of surprise. Fayne stood beside Adri, quietly watching everything, his hands full of daggers.

‘Impossible!’ Arshamm hissed, as the creature ignored his attacks. ‘How can it just resist my fire?

‘Change your attacks, Arshamm!’ Natasha screamed.

Gray had been punched by the Commando he tried to disarm. The punch sent him reeling to a wall, where he crumpled to the floor, staying there. His will was sapped, he merely looked at everything happening in front of him as though it were a dream.

‘Don’t kill my sister,’ he murmured.

The Mask jumped and landed where they were. It was moving quicker than before now. One of its bone limbs reached out and crushed another Commando. The others retreated across the roof, firing away at the Necrotic. Arshamm and Natasha poured in all the electricity they could muster.

‘Adri,’ Fayne said.

Adri was still gazing at the creature in wonder, his mind working furiously. Then it all clicked. ‘Of course,’ he mumbled, and then turned to Fayne. ‘Ready?’ he said. ‘Stand by.’ Fayne nodded.

The creature was now like a twisted pincushion of death, corpses waving about at the ends of its tentacles, the eyes in the Mask burning white and cruel as it ignored Adri and Fayne and walked towards the group of the two Sorcerers and the few surviving Commandos. Adri turned to Gray and saw him lying immobile across the roof, away from the Devil Mask. He ran to the white haired figure.

‘Gray! Gray! It’s time!’ Adri hissed.

‘Leave me here, Adri,’ Gray muttered. ‘I want to die here.’

Adri slapped Gray hard.

‘OW!’ Gray roared. ‘You did that on purpose!’

‘Get the hell up and play the violin!’ Adri shouted. ‘There’s no time!’

Gray’s eyes opened wide. ‘But Maya?’

‘We are extracting her
now
! Play the bloody violin!’

Gray nodded and scampered to where his violin case lay, luckily undamaged. Adri looked at the Mask as it rapidly bore down upon the survivors. It was now or never.

‘Fayne! Right when the music starts!’ Adri shouted.

Fayne was running towards the Devil Mask. The creature had its back towards Fayne, but it never missed anything. A couple of tentacles lashed out at the assassin as he ran.

Gray started to play. It was imperfect and horrible, and even more so because of all the pressure Gray was under. His hands trembled and he got his basic notes wrong. But the moment the music began it talked to the Necrotic in a language it could comprehend clearer than anything else. It dropped all its attacks immediately and whipped around to face the music.

Fayne completed his run, slicing through the two tentacles and burying two daggers into the Devil Mask’s stomach. The next second, he turned both the daggers to cut two enormous arcs in its stomach, completing a full circle through bone and flesh. The Mask froze, Gray played. A section of the stomach dropped out with black slime and translucent fluid—the assassin stepped aside nimbly to avoid getting hit—and inside was Maya, white soft cilia keeping her in place like a puppet in the Devil Mask’s centre. The creature had completely stopped moving, but Fayne was still very quick at slashing away the tentacles and catching Maya’s limp body as she fell out. The Devil Mask roared and looked at its cut, bleeding stomach as Fayne rushed away with Maya. The creature roared again, fighting the music, but it could not help listening to the violin for a few seconds more even as the Sorcerers behind it pelted it with fireballs. Gray stopped suddenly, and the spell broken, the Devil Mask leapt onto the roof of the next building, and disappeared.

Everybody was stunned. ‘Well, after it!’ Natasha screamed the next instant and the four surviving commandos nodded and rushed off towards the staircase. Arshamm and Natasha went with them, briefly glancing at Maya now in Fayne’s arms.

Gray ran to Fayne. Maya was motionless.

‘Adri,’ Gray said, looking at Maya. ‘Was she healed?’

‘The Devil Mask knew the way here because it had access to Maya’s memories,’ Adri said. ‘That’s how it found us here. Which leads me to believe that the Mask had completely integrated Maya as a host; she should be perfectly healed of the corruption.’

‘Maya’s memories?’ Fayne asked.

‘Yes, and I know what it implies. It seems Maya, even in her coma, has been perfectly aware of our movements and our surroundings,’ Adri said. ‘It is surprising.’

Gray looked back at the soaked Maya, lying unconscious, but breathing. Her face seemed to be returning to a more normal colour. Was she really cured?

‘Let her rest,’ Adri said. ‘I believe she has a lot of catching up to do when she does wake.’

When the morning sun rose, Adri was not on the roof with the others. He was quite a distance away, alone, walking through empty streets. There were not many birds that still called out in the mornings and it made Adri feel better to hear them. Things were changing for the better now. He was quite sure Maya was cured; perhaps he could send the three of them back now. Fayne would be as good an insurance as any that they got back into New Kolkata safe and sound—the siblings would probably be dying to leave anyway. The bridge was nearby and so was the road to Pestilence. What waited for him now was his to deal with. And deal he would. Alone.